(This image of Michigan draped in the LGBT Rainbow Flag is from Wikipedia Commons, where it was posted by Fry1989.)Late Friday U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman issued a ruling that ended Michigan's ban on same-sex marriages (and adoptions). Michigan's ban was an amendment to the state constitution (called the Michigan Marriage Act) which had been passed by that state's voters in 2004. The judge wrote in his 31-page decision:
“Many Michigan residents have religious convictions whose principles govern the conduct of their daily lives and inform their own viewpoints about marriage. Nonetheless, these views cannot strip other citizens of the guarantees of equal protection under the law.”
This makes Judge Friedman the fifth federal judge in the last four months to rule that a state's ban on same-sex marriage violates the United States Constitution. The first was Utah back in December. Then a judge tossed out Oklahoma's ban in January. In February, federal judges in Virginia and in Texas ruled the bans in those states unconstitutional.
The Michigan Attorney General immediately appealed the decision to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. That means there are now three cases that have been appealed and are pending in three different appeals courts. The Utah case is pending in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Texas case is pending in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
It will be interesting to see what happens in these three different courts. Will they all agree, or will they make different decisions? If they disagree, then the United States Supreme Court will probably be forced to make the decision it has been avoiding for several years now -- whether these state bans on same-sex marriages violate the United States Constitution by denying same-sex couples equal rights. Will the Supreme Court try to turn back the clock (as a previous court did in the terrible Dred Scott decision), or will they finally admit that all Americans deserve equal rights under the law?
I may be an optimist, but I believe same-sex marriage bans will soon be eliminated in the United States as a whole -- the same way mixed-race marriages were a few decades ago. It is just time for it to happen.
